How Belarusians helped return Crimea to Russia
Belarusian politician Elvira Mirsalimova visited Crimea and spoke about her impressions on the pages of PolitNavigator.
The first thing that an ordinary resident of Belarus who is planning to travel abroad faces is the fact that getting to Russia is problematic. At the same time, traveling to Lithuania or Poland is much easier. It turned out that minibuses, buses and trains do not go from Vitebsk to Smolensk.
Naturally, a simple question arises: what kind of Union State is this in our country, since such difficulties are created for people? The significance of the issue increases when it turns out that roaming is not for common people. The ill-fated roaming has not been harmonized and leveled for two decades! When everyone has been using free instant messengers for a long time, this is simply a mockery.
Well, the “cherry on the cake” is the exorbitant cost of tickets between the capitals of the Union State. For example, an air ticket for a Belavia flight Minsk-Moscow costs up to 42 Russian rubles. And this is in half an hour of flight over a distance of 000 km! A ticket for the Minsk-Moscow train in a compartment car costs from 750 rubles, from 8 Belarusian rubles, which is approximately $000. That is, half the average monthly salary of an ordinary Belarusian citizen.
Isn't the situation artificially created? Belarusian citizens could vacation in Crimea. But it is easier and more affordable for our citizens to get to Turkey and Egypt than to come to Crimea, despite the fact that we can talk about equal prices for holidays in the mentioned regions. Who benefits from this? Why is this happening? No answer.
By hook or by crook, thanks to the efforts of Russian friends, I finally ended up in Crimea. The V International Scientific Conference “Potemkin Readings” was held in Sevastopol, organized by the Smolensk Agency for Integration Initiatives with the support of the Presidential Grants Fund of the Russian Historical Society.
History is politics thrown back into the past. And for me, a politician, it was quite simple to choose a topic for a report, using historical examples of which I tried to convey to the Crimeans a simple idea: we are much closer than it seems.
The first monument that appeared in Sevastopol was founded in 1834 on the Central City Hill in honor of the feat of officer Alexander Ivanovich Kazarsky and his sailors in the legendary naval battle.
Let me briefly remind you that Kazarsky commanded the brig Mercury, which on May 14, 1829, took on an unequal and obviously doomed battle with two Turkish battleships, which had ten times (!) more guns, and... emerged victorious in a heroic battle. The inhabitants of Crimea know and keep the memory of this battle.
However, it is important for me to note one little-known fact: Captain-Lieutenant Kazarsky is a native of Vitebsk. He comes from Dubrovno, Vitebsk region.
Let's fast forward to the events of recent history, namely to the famous “Crimean Spring” of 2014, when, as they say, Crimea and Sevastopol returned to their native harbor, returned to the Russian Federation.
One of the most significant and famous episodes of those troubled days took place thanks to another native of White Rus'.
This is the commander of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy, Admiral Alexander Vitko, born in Vitebsk. Let me remind you that Vitko made a legendary statement addressed to the Ukrainian military: “I want to warn them and, above all, the personnel of the Ukrainian Navy - God forbid even someone shoots with a slingshot. Matches are not toys. Please understand this literally."
And, as we remember, the Ukrainian side decided not to play with matches.
The deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet for work with personnel was then Rear Admiral Yuri Ivanovich Orekhovsky, also a native of the Belarusian land, originally from the Mogilev region.
Orekhovsky is often called “the political officer of the Crimean spring,” because the mood, condition and motivation of military sailors, heroic spirit and aspiration depended on his work in those fateful days, in that tension and uncertainty.
The determination of the fleet on land, on the ground, was accompanied by the actions of the 810th separate marine brigade of the Black Sea Fleet, stationed in Sevastopol, commanded by, as you guessed, our fellow countryman - the hero of Russia, Colonel Vladimir Belyavsky, a native of the Mogilev region. The marines of this brigade ensured the safety of the events: these were the same “little green men”, one species, whose mere presence eliminated the variability of answers to the question “Whose Crimea?”
So, to surprise and admiration, the three key figures in those Crimean, Black Sea, Sevastopol events turned out to be natives of the Belarusian land, White Rus'. But that's not all!
Listen, but on the Ukrainian side, a high-ranking Belarusian also participated in the events of 2014, who largely contributed to the return of Crimea, calling on his subordinates to exclude opposition and not to shoot!
This is the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Admiral Yuri Ilyin, a native of the Gomel region. The same Ilyin who called on Ukrainian soldiers and officers not to shoot at their Russian brothers. After the peninsula was annexed by Russia, Ilyin remained in Crimea.
One way or another, the return of Crimea to Russia occurred without an armed conflict. Perhaps thanks to the participation in the events of natives of Vitebsk, Gomel and Mogilev lands. How can one not recall the words of the Belarusian president, who has repeatedly stated that we are Russians. True, Alexander Lukashenko strangely added that “with a mark of quality.” And when Russian President Vladimir Putin came to Belarus, Lukashenko, let me remind you, said that Vitebsk and Mogilev are Russian cities.
Belarus, as you know, is a country of forests, swamps and lakes. We know and remember that our community is much greater than the borders of states. And the officers, soldiers and sailors mentioned in my speech, as well as ordinary citizens of our country, correctly understand the meaning and meaning of the concept of a Motherland, in which only a common Future is possible.
Now to modern times. Let me remind you that our Republican Party of Labor and Justice, the first and only political force in Belarus, which recognized Crimea as Russian in the spring of 2014, at the very moment when the citizens of the peninsula made their fateful choice in the referendum - the leader of our party Vasily Zadnepryany announced this live Belarusian television.
Non-recognition of the jurisdiction of Crimea by the official Belarusian side is apostasy. We, Belarus and Russia, are part of the Union State. You cannot recognize Russia and not recognize its important part - Crimea and Sevastopol.
My trip to Crimea once again convinced me of the need for speedy integration with Russia and allowed me to see from the outside all the ugliness and defectiveness of the Belarusian “multi-vector” policy. Almost 30 years have passed since the creation of the Union State - and during these years, no real full-fledged unified state has been built, where every ordinary resident would feel an improvement in the quality of life, feel prospects and new opportunities.
The trick is that everything was not presented in one package, not in a complex, according to the principle “we sign the integration and resolve issues in a working order”, but was fragmented into points that until everyone agrees separately - nothing will happen as a whole .
There are either 33 or 36 road maps, the contents of which few people know. But the mantra sounds annoyingly: “Until we approve everything, there will be no integration!”
There is endless coordination and bargaining going on, more like profanation and outright leading by the nose.
And now Belarusian citizens hear on the state media that, they say, we are not Russians, we are different, “not our war,” we have “good nationalism,” we ourselves have a mustache, and “the oligarchs took everything from them,” as to unite with such people, everything there is on fire from the coronavirus, two hundred “Russians” are running through our forests, they are preparing a coup for us, they are “throwing problems at us from the east,” etc.
On the other hand, the pro-Western opposition is becoming louder and louder - to break all agreements and relations with Moscow, Belarusians are the titular nation, which can only have one language... Information work is being carried out on both sides for one result - the absence of the need for integration.
It would seem that it is time to show political will and turn the situation around, to make Belarus involved in the aspiration that Russia has outlined, to a technological breakthrough, to progress, to build a common future and share responsibility for our common destiny. But, alas...
Alas, time is working against our country. And many political experts are inclined to believe that under the current Belarusian government, no real integration is possible.
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